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Comment Universal is more important than basic (Score 1) 1022

Moot point: When working out how to implement universal basic income, the "universal" part is more important than the "basic" part.

This is based on a simulated study of research funding, indicating that the most affordable success was achieved when a small amount of money was given to everyone.

But there's another thing that needs to disappear in order to compensate for any form of universal income: the minimum wage.

My suggestion would be to implement a universal income, with welfare top-ups where necessary, and slowly increase the amount while reducing the minimum wage. This would mean employers would still be able to employ people at affordable levels, even though demand for work would reduce.

Comment MLJ (Score 1) 362

I think that the device Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen is creating is a better technology, because it's a lot less invasive, and can be removed by hand without the use of surgical tools:

https://www.openwater.cc/techn...

We use an utterly unconventional approach that enables us to leapfrog MRI technology by using the scattering of the body or the brain itself to focus infrared light to scan the brain or body bit by bit or voxel by voxel. This is enabled by LCDs with pixels small enough to create reconstructive holographic images that neutralize the scattering and enable scanning at MRI resolution and depth coupled with the use of body-temperature detectors. These LCDs and detectors line the inside of a ski-hat, bandage or other clothing.

Comment Cranking out the old template (Score 4, Funny) 151

Your post advocates a

(X) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante ( ) form-based

approach to fighting memory loss. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mail and other legitimate text uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(X) It will stop memory loss for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of facebook will not put up with it
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
(X) The police will not put up with it
(X) Requires too much cooperation from people with memory loss
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Many text users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
(X) This meme is tired and worn out and I'm just as likely to get a -1 troll as a +5 funny.
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(X) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of writing
(X) Huge existing software investment in fonts
(X) Susceptibility of brain paths other than glyph recognition to memory loss
(X) Willingness of users to install new fonts
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do need to read things
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(X) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
(X) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of established writing systems
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatibility with open source or open source licenses
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

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